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1. Let's end on an up note. While 2014 seems to have been a year of writerly and career set-backs, it's not entirely true. Quench won two awards--one from the Viola and one from Independent Publishers. My Micro-chapbook is forthcoming from Black Warrior Review. Witness picked up an essay. The New Yorker sent me a sweet rejection. Better magazine published an essay. I am reviewing excellent books for blurbs and reviews. I had a party. I traveled to Telluride. Seattle. Helena. Twin Falls. Salt Lake. The only western states I'll miss this year are Oregon and New Mexico. I got two writing grants--one from the Arts Commission and one from my school. I helped to get two grants for my school. I have guest writers lined up, guests coming to visit, weddings to attend and a sabbatical looming. My students send me thank you cards and let's get back to class emails. This year, Max and Zoe were sick so rarely--and I think Max's immune system is almost up to full-Kindergarten assault preparedness status.

2. Max and Zoe. On their bikes. Max is going to try to pedal his Spiderman bike since he call balance on his pushbike all the way from our house to Grandma's. Zoe is riding my bike. Does this mean a new bike is in my forecast. My future holds bike riding and that is the best kind of future one could wish for.

3. The lesson for the summer is: Writing is fun. Revising is not. Yesterday, I realized why revising takes me so long. I'm reading along, things are going well and I hit upon a sentence that reads something like, "And then her her ate the position." I have no idea what I was trying to say. If I delete it, will I lose some important that comes up later? Is this a key to the character's identity? Is this a leitmotif? So, stressed, I look to Facebook or recipe suggestions for dinner for help. This is a slow defensive mechanism. I should try to stick to the uncomfortable. It's a good lesson for life and for summer's ending.

Two writing manifestos to go push ahead:

From Richard Powers' Orfeo, page 322. 

Let no one persuade you of a single thing. Study your hunger and how to feed it. Trust in whatever sounds twist your viscera. Write in the cadences of first love, of second chances, of air raids, of outrage, of the hideous and the hilarious, of headlong acceptance or curt refusal. Make the bitter music of  bumdom, the sad shanties of landlessness, cool at the equator and fluid at the pole. Set the sounds that angels make after an all-night orgy. Whatever lengthens the day, whatever gets you through the night. Make the music that you need, for need will be over, soon enough. Let your progressions predict time’s end and recollect the dead as if they’re all still her. Because they are.  

And from Dinty Moore's Facebook: 

"I write because I’m suffering, and the world is suffering, too, and I believe a great story, well written, can help as much as anything." ~ Alan Heathcock